My daughter has been doing a Halloween countdown now for about 2 weeks, asking me daily... 'Mama how long do I have left for Halloween'.. and I tell her without even thinking. She came home yesterday all proud showing me her weeks work. Don't get me wrong.. I think it was cute.. and I told her how beautiful her work was.. and how proud I was to have such a smart, beautiful daughter...

A Black cat she cut out and glued.

A pumkin she cut out and coloured

&

A flying bat she made.

She will be having a Halloween party at school next week, in which we ordered her a sleeping beauty outfit from Amazon. Just now it hit me when I asked my daughter... ha 7abeeebti... what is next week... and she shouted out HALLOWEEN. I was actually waiting for her to say Eid!

It hit me hard.. My 4 year old daughter, who was born and lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia... a supposed Qaseemiya... knows NOTHING about Eid and knows next to nothing about Islam, except that I pray... she is doing the countdown for Halloween and driving me crazy daily yo try on her 'princess dress'... yet hadn't the slightest clue what Eid was supposed to be.

I failed big time! I really failed!

I am supposed to teach her what Eid is, I am supposed to teach her about Islam, by verbally teaching her, and through my actions. Sadly I failed!

This was a wake up call for me, that I MUST be more active in teaching my daughter things. One month in school and she is already doing the Halloween dance... and I am pretty sure Christmas will be yet another countdown.

I am awake now.. and shall be the teacher I am supposed to be.. give her more one on one time... teach her about our beautiful religion...

7 comments:

I have been trying recently to implement the importance of Fridays, and the two eid and am stealing ideas of Xmas to do so. We r in communities (Islamic ones) but nothing is encouraged. So I failed same as you and for eid alfi6r made a cake n a puppet show about importance of eid, it's in my English blog. You haven't failed yet coz you realised it now as she is still young and you can do something before eid eladh7a. All the best

dont be so hard on yourself!you're not a failure at all, I would rather say the school is!Im really surprised they had children making Halloween decorations in a Saudi school, I mean dont the Saudi parents mind all this "western influence"Why werent they making Eid decorations??

Thank you Moon... I will check out your blog.. I would love to see what u did <3 and thank you sooo much for your kind words <3

laylah... The school she is in.. is in a compound.. so maybe thats why they do this... but I am planning on sending 'happy Eid' goodie bags for her classmates (same day they r having the halloween party)... and the cupcakes I am making will have fun Eid flags on it enshallah... we will also have a bar-b-que party with her cousins as well.. (we have a bouncy castle and stuff)... so they can have a bit of fun with baloons all over the place enshallah <3 Thank you for your kinds words hon <3

remember halloween is an occassion that is massively marketted world wide,even on TV and everywhere,and given that she is an english speaker the first and for most influence she will have is english.

it happened early,you will catch it early,inshallah i am positive that you will be able to introduce the idea you want to implement slowly and she will learn to balance the joy for both.

its scary,really,since probably my daughter and son will end up going to the same schooling system they will end up having the same hype about halloween and christmas..even though our family is one huge party animal for Eid,i think the biggest factor that contribute to solving this is the family influence..if her dads side of the family celebrate the eid properly let her engage into it more often and create memories that makes her look forward to it every year etc..

this is a boat soon i will get into,i always thought of it,but i never imagined it happening,reading about it here gave me the picture.

sadly,Eids in saudi Suck,they are not as halfly celebrated as it is in egypt for instance…which makes the challange harder in saudi since in compounds they do halloweens very well and quite fun and non comparable with any eid celebrations..unless we at home make a big eid party with piñata and stuff..

So... I grew up with Halloween. It was fun, never creepy. And it was secular, never tied to religion or practice... I never really thought about it being an issue after becoming Muslim: then I became pregnant.

This year, with the bun cooking, I decided to ditch Halloween (fears of my children being enticed by costumes and candy). I didn't decorate, I didn't buy candy for the neighborhood kids. Then, just the day before Halloween, my Middle Eastern born Muslim Husband freaks out: "Did you get candy? There will be little children begging for candy at our door and you didn't buy candy for them?"! hahahah..

In the end Middle Eastern hospitality won and we had to supply a small amount of candy for the "begging" children. And I even gave in and put a few LED candles on the door step to give the kids the sign "stop here, candy!"

But, what will I do next year when I start fancying the idea of dressing my baby as a lady bug or a pumpkin?!

In the end, is it not our intent that matters? If my child will draw a bat or pumpkin for fun, does that mean that they are distracted from the righteous path? I would worry if my child comes home with a book of witch craft and says it is more powerful than Allah (yikes). Call in the reform police...

And come on, if a kid has to choose from candy, costume and sparkles versus slaughtering a sheep, giving food to the poor and ??? What a challenge we are all facing! : )

Salam sister..its really good that u realised that you need to introduce islam to ure child now ..alhamdulillah she is still so young...at the same time it was kinda scary to see that in a country like saudi..islam is neglected..i guess environment is everything and the fact u have ure daughter in that particular school shows that international practises are focused on more then islam...pretty scary for muslim parents and child. But each to their own. Kids are so impressionable at this age..if u start talking about islam..it will just sink in..if u start teaching about halloween it will sink in as well..so its important to see what ure girl is actually learning. Everyone can make Eid 10 times funner then halloween..just use ure imagination..u have to make it special for the kids so they feel they are not missing out on anything. Allah make it easy for u amen.GawjusMuslimah

the princess dress! I think every little girl dreams of that. We got Missy a snow white dress too...from ELC. She calls it her princess dress.

I'll tell u how I failed...my daughter knew surah ikhlas, surah kausar, kalima shahadat by heart at age 2, and now she doesn't remember them...she is so keen on singing nursery rhymes that she just doesnt want to recite the surahs with me. When i listen to the recordings i made a year ago i feel horrible at being lazy and not pursuing it on a daily basis..